By Stephen Kangal
February 18, 2019
The Chairman of Caricom, St Kitts-Nevis Prime Minister Harris described the Montevideo Mechanism as a blue print or framework to process and resolve all political conflicts. However Caricom’s immediate mandate was to deal exclusively with identifying specific proposals/measures/ the way forward for abating and resolving the worsening humanitarian and political crisis in Venezuela via peaceful means.
This so -called peace-making Mechanism contains four theoretical modules that students develop in their conflict resolution classrooms. It is not self-executing and depends on the push and pull intervention by Mexico, Uruguay and Caricom for its fulfillment in Caracas. No word is forthcoming on progress being achieved this front.
It is pure unvarnished intellectual and conceptual nonsense delivered in an academic and hackneyed mechanism that is full of words but signifying nothing to address the actual and compelling Caracas political impasse and the consequent humanitarian disaster. It is indeed very irrelevant.
According to the EU chief spokeswoman the Montevideo Mechanism that Mexico, Uruguay and CARICOM have launched and presented and the Montevideo Declaration that the International Contact Group have initiated in Uruguay are two different things with two different compositions and two different objectives.
This Mechanism resembles a research prospectus for a thesis to be written by some one full of himself intellectually with plenty theory but nothing to help on the ground in Venezuela where people are suffering and Maduro has dug deep in the trenches with the military to inflict his atrocities and feed his ego and lust for power.
Caricom did not address the situation in Venezuela. It produced a frame for all disputes resolution that is bankrupt, academically stultifying and very constipated in its solution to the problems of Venezuela.
No wonder the EU and LATAM completely rejected it.
The Montevideo Mechanism is a time-wasting, resolution- delaying formula with plenty bark but no bite geared to give Maduro time to recover from the popular momentum generated the Opposition led by Juan Guido. No wonder that Maduro supported it.
The Declaration of the Contact Group (EU and Uruguay et al. with Mexico abstaining) has a definite precise time-tabling for the restoration of democracy and the holding of the new elections with several meetings carded to monitor progress and undertake the necessary evaluation for further more stronger action to end this humanitarian crisis.
The Mechanism is quite abstract, theory-based and pedantic operating as a headless chicken.
It is the product of relegated corridor diplomacy looking for a presence at the Montevideo Meetings with no locus standi and mere spectators with the Prime Ministers having no place at a Ministerial Meeting and exposing our countries to humiliation from a State protocol standpoint.
What were Prime Ministers doing at a Foreign Ministers Meeting if not embarrassing us by making this useless, unnecessary and costly safari to Uruguay uninvited and excluded?
It was pure and unadulterated Caricomesse with Prime Minister Rowley returning home low-keyed after another failure this time in the virgin territory of conference diplomacy with Foreign Minister Moses misleading him much to our collective embarrassment.
It does not matter what mechanism anyone put in place to resolve the horrible suffering in Venezuela it will work unless Uncle Sam is on board with it.
The Kissinger policy of the 1960s was to make all nations in the Western Hemisphere subservient to the United States. That policy involved using the CIA to plant diseases, create unrest, fund trade unions to destabilize any nation that is a threat or future threat to America. Cheddi Jagan succumbed to the work of the CIA and MI6. Over 300,000 indo Guyanese fled and are scattered all over the world. It is the same policy with Cuba, Castro surviving over 300 assassination attempts and various kinds of diseases attacking their sugar cane crop.
American policy in Central South America has not change several governments has been toppled and regimes that do more harm installed. Venezuela is suffering because Maduro has fed and funded the elitist class supported by the military. This after American policy to block and starve the nation, economically and politically. Over 3,000,000,000 has fled. Predators of the vulnerable especially young girls abound. Recently a line up of motor bikes with men waiting for young attractive senioritas were show in the southern shore.
The Chinese, Syria and Mexican mafia are busy at work seeing to built their empire through money laundering, gambling, drug and prostitution.
As stated American policy dictates what happens in their southern borders, not talk shop CARICOM leaders who sat on their hands on this issue for years. Americans recognize Guaido and boom they all awake in a flurry of diplomacy. That’s the power of Uncle Sam.
The refugees number is 3,000,000 leading to 5m by the end of 2019. The essence of the Venezuelan crisis is that it is no longer within the domestic jurisdiction exclusively of Venezuela with 3m in nearby countries and the violation of human, political and civil rights infringing the UN Conventions as well as a real threat to the peace and security, indeed the economic welfare of the tourist-sensitive economies of the Caribbean and a supply of hydrocarbons to other countries contacted to but Venezuelan oil. No one can now claim internal affairs or non-interference as a policy because of the several ramifications stated above inherent in the beyond Venezuelan crisis.There is too much duplicity and deception involved in the peace-making agenda. Real interests are at stake hiding behind principled nonsense.